A Candle for a Company
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: They were the friends that guided her to a death she never saw coming, and he was the enemy too weak to stop them or protect her.


**A/N:** For the Pokemon Horror Oneshot Challenge on the Pokemon Fanfiction Challenges Forum (link's on my profile if anyone's interested in Pokemon challenges/competitions). The minimum word count was 1000, so this makes the longest poem I've ever written...even with the breaks.

* * *

**A Candle for a Company**

* * *

There were scratches on the wall.

Long.  
Raked.  
Thin.

They weren't there when she passed,  
they weren't there when she awoke

Five times in the night,  
passing under the nocturnal light  
of the Litwicks on her wall.

Their flames dancing with the shadows –  
her path flickered ahead of her  
and was gone

And the scratches on the wall  
had a reddish glow.

* * *

She didn't know where they came from  
or when  
but suddenly, they had come

And she couldn't have been happier.

If she had known the future to come  
she would run after  
her Cottone:

At wits end  
between the fire,  
the darkness,  
the captive wind  
and his new and desolate home.

She had hoped he loved her enough  
but he hadn't –  
he'd left her for the wild

And furious,  
hurting,  
she'd turned her back –  
she'd let him go  
alone.

He'd return,  
she thought,  
it was just a little spat.

But no, it wasn't;  
he never came back.

* * *

They brightened the place –  
the Litwicks –  
with their little candle flares

Better than the old wiring  
ever could

And out came the rag,  
and the dust-mop too

And slowly,  
she polished her way through  
the upper floors

With her path illuminated  
by new friends.

* * *

She'd found the place  
easily enough:  
cheap, out of town  
and with a high wind nearby.

Her old place  
on the treetops  
was gone, beyond repair.

It had sounded like a dream,  
and maybe her fantasy  
was not so far off…

An old, musty mansion  
on top of a lonely hill

Could flourish  
with shining bright halls  
and singing Swablu on the rafters  
and Cottone swarming all round

And Bellosom dancing  
at the welcome door  
and Bellsprouts rising  
from lush garden beds  
and Woopers slithering  
in the mud –

Truth be told,  
Litwicks were never on the list  
but if they shed some light  
on the gloomy hole,  
who was she to complain?

* * *

The sun never shone.

The wind's whistles  
were high-pitched cries of anger,  
and pain.

She'd thought that when she fixed the cracks  
that would change

But it didn't.

The first sleepless nights  
she'd understood  
and they'd traversed  
with Cottone under the bed  
with his little white balls  
and her,  
trying to pick them out  
in the torchlight  
and flick them back at him.

Cottone loved the wind  
but not when it screamed  
like a man possessed

And the sunlight  
which endeared him all  
to grow  
found itself far from reach  
and sight

And the lonely hill  
only gave birth  
to dismal weed.

It shouldn't have been depressing  
but it was.

Something was killing the land;  
something had already killed it

And it wasn't a heap of wood  
she could fashion  
into a palace  
of a ball of string  
into a dream-weaver  
that chimed on the gentle breeze –

For there was no gentle breeze,  
just the ear-splitting shrieks  
that woke the dead.

* * *

The Litwicks were ghosts as well.

It frightened her, sometimes,  
seeing them glowing on walls  
in the dark.

They led her on a rope,  
through halls, corridors,  
nooks and cracks

Above ground.

Floating candles  
on a wind locked out  
of room

But it was just the dark at play:  
a nature they couldn't hide

And eventually, things started looking up  
as the walls finally changed.

* * *

She'd pulled down half the place  
in the end –

She needed a place to stay  
after all:  
a roof above her head,  
a bed, a kitchen,  
and much else aside

– and built it up from scratch  
with lighter colours, looser feels

And it was a bell  
that chimed in the wind:

An oddity,  
but when a world grew around it,  
her fantasy land.

The Litwicks burnt the ground  
at her command,  
and then she scattered the seeds  
and sprinkled them  
with her Wailmer pail

And they sprouted  
little heads of green  
and red.

* * *

Her heart got louder in the night.

Silence screamed  
when the wind gave its ceaseless howl  
a brief respite –

The Litwick chanted  
when the noise died down,  
filling the space

Like a lullaby,  
sending her to the land of dreams

But uneasy, fitful  
doze

That awoke her  
at first not-light.

* * *

She fixed the scratches  
on the wall.

She knew she did.

They came back.

She fixed them again  
and they returned,  
carved even deeper.

She fixed them again,  
filling, painting over –

They spread.  
Moved down.  
Got closer.  
More sporadic.

Less straight.  
Less even.  
More…wild.

She pleaded with the Litwick  
to guard her door  
and they agreed.

The next morning she found them  
in the town, dazed and confused,  
and her door half-dissolved  
with drops of acid  
still drying  
on her step.

* * *

She awoke to a cold sweat  
and the stench of nausea  
in her nose.

The Litwick sensed her distress  
for they set the curtains alight  
and she managed to sleep  
the rest of the night.

That morning, when she awoke again,  
she found nothing, save  
the cinders of her curtains.

* * *

The Litwick were agate  
she knew.

She didn't know why

But it put her on edge too.

Meanwhile, the walls  
began to heal  
with no new threats

And she moved upwards  
once more.

The wind howled louder than ever  
at her;  
she'd learnt to block it out.

* * *

Her room was the last thing to go  
but the first to be replaced:

One with large windows  
on higher ground,  
beckoning to the wind  
and facing the moon  
and the setting sun

But it was still dark,  
and dreary,  
and musty  
and she couldn't understand.

The sun shown in the village.  
The sun shown on the hill  
when no-one was around

But the sun refused to shine  
for her.

She wondered if she should  
leave the place behind,  
find a future elsewhere  
and construct her dream-home

But the Litwick wailed a storm  
that put the wind to shame  
and she bent, just a bit.

A Litwick evolved  
that night.

* * *

She followed them –  
the Lampert and Litwick  
carefully,  
shivering in the cold.

The scrapes and scratches  
followed after them

And last, her lagging heart  
thumping its wayward tail  
far behind.

She turned;  
the shadows snuck up  
and she screamed:

A loud shrill scream  
that scurried the Litwick  
to haste.

The hallway burnt  
on their tails  
as the Lampert led on

To be safe…

* * *

She breathed a shallow  
sigh of relief  
as the wind caressed her nose

Finally…

If only she could quell the shudders  
in her frame

Then she could fully enjoy the peace.

* * *

The Litwick famly crowed  
in triumph as a beaten Haunter  
left the scene.


End file.
